Demographics and the Dustbin of History

Armed and Dangerous ^ | Monday, December 02, 2002 | posted by Eric Raymond

[expatpat]

The white European population is declining and aging, but don't the immigrant demographics compensate for that?

[Mike Darancette]

European populations are not having children at replacement levels.

New words to John Lennon song:

Imagine there's no Germans,
It's easy if you try,
No French or Belgians,
The English have all died...

[TopQuark]

Europeans are demonstrating in their behavior that they don't believe the future will be good for children.

No silly: in post-Christian Europe, people have no duty to either G-d or each other; such people live for themselves and indulge into pleasures.

[TopQuark]

Yes, that's why they keep importing "migrant" workers that stay.

[Mike Darancette]

Can it be that all national populations lose their will to have children when they get sufficiently comfortable?

Actually I have always been of the opinion that a society loses it's desire to have children when children become expensive and bothersome to raise.

[AirmanAlaska]

This is truly awe inspiring. I love it. Now if only we could turn the microscope on Canada and see what their 51% tax bracket (that kicks in at 50G's Canadian money) has done to THAT nation.

[Leisler]

The state is God, and they are the state, therefore their selves and their pleasures are Godly.

[RKV]

Great article.

[Leisler]

In ten years it will be illegal to emigrate from Europe to the US if you have any useful and productive skills. Of course I don’t expect the bureaucrats to get it right, so they might just forbid emigration to those that hold important European occupations like mimes, street caulk artist, Peugeot repairmen and oven makers.

[Leisler]

More.

Karl Zinsmeister's essay Old and In The Way

http://www.theamericanenterprise.org/taedec02a.htm

[arkfreepdom]

Although I share some of your concerns, there are many dissimilarities btween us and Europe. For one, the main immigrant group to our country is Christian and therefore similar culturally.

[FairWitness]

but while in Europe the socialists consolidated their grip on public thinking during those years, our "democratic socialists" didn't — and never recovered from Ronald Reagan's two-term presidency after 1980.

Thank you, and bless you, President Reagan.

[RKV]

Nice link also - I liked this part.
"Given our fundamental belief that each person and nation should be free to solve their own problems, average Americans are perfectly content to have Europeans go their own way. If the Euros think welfare statism and E.U. regulation is their ticket to prosperity, they're welcome to try. If they believe they're safer without a ballistic missile shield than with one, we say Godspeed to them."
Reality is going to be a b*tch for them.

[TopQuark]

Human birth rates rise under two circumstances.

No, there are at least three.

One is when people think they need to have a lot of kids for any of them to survive. The other is when human beings think their children will have it better than they do.

The third reason --- and I think this is one is seriously at play --- is that one needs children to secure old age. If mortality is high, there is a risk of not having any when you are old yourself. When poverty and risk are high, more children are necessary.

Socialism removes this need by assuring a person of support in his old age. But this is only a part of the story: the other is the overall wealth and a dramatic improvement in nutrition and medical care in the Western world.

[Savage Beast]

What this means is that Europeans and Americans should arrange a summit meeting--on the double--to (1) close European and American borders to immigrants from Muslim countries and (2) work out a NAFTA-like treaty, whereby Americans can merely move to Europe to take up the population slack. With a little imagination, the Europe of the future could be indistinguishable from North America--prosperity and all. Maintain the status quo, and the Europe of the future will be indistinguishable from Afghanistan.

[colorado tanker]

Europeans are demonstrating in their behavior that they don't believe the future will be good for children. You replied: No silly: in post-Christian Europe, people have no duty to either G-d or each other; such people live for themselves and indulge into pleasures.

This is an insightful article, although I have the same quibble as you. People had children during the centuries when life for most of us was "nasty, brutish and short." People in Europe are deciding not to have children because they are secular, materialistic, narcissists.

But the great point this article makes is the impact on the economy when population growth drops past replacement. Two thirds of the Western economy is dependent on consumer spending. Consumer spending is fueled by young and middle aged adults, who are in the acquisition phase of life and many of whom are raising families. Older and retired adults tend to live off the assets they acquired earlier and spend much less on consumer goods. This trend has hit Europe, Japan and European-Americans. Immigration (and the State of Utah), however, have kept America much younger demographically, which fuels economic growth.

I'm really surprised no one has linked the interminable Japanese recession or the stagnation in Europe to the problem of their greying populations. OK, I guess it's not so surprising since liberal CW says the problem is overpopulation and they haven't come to grips with the fact that population growth has been slowing since WWII and according even to the UN will peak worldwide in 2050. Liberals are always playing catch up with the facts.

[Ahban]

What about the role of abortion in sending cultures to the dustbin? How many young would be Europeans were subtracted out this way?

How much less would we need immigration from Mexico if those 40 million young Americans had been allowed to be born?